Minoy

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In 1986 I became aware of the Los Angeles sound artist Minoy after receiving one of his tapes for my radio show. I didn’t know what to think at first. There was no accompanying letter, no personal exchange, nothing to grab on to and understand except the music. The sounds were challenging, irritating at times, hallucinogenic and mindblowing. Jack Jordan ( Option reviewer and music critic) explains his experience below and provides some interesting discography information.

Jack Jordan

Stanley Bowsza (aka “Minóy” ) was not only one of the acknowledged “creators” of the 1980s “homemade” independent music scene, he was also one of its most-acclaimed and well-known through his extensive collaborations with literally dozens of other luminaries in the burgeoning scene.

Many have wondered how Mr. Bowsza came to adopt the name “Minóy.” It stemmed from his interest the visual arts: His favorite artist was Joan Miró, the renowned Catalan surrealist painter who died in 1983. One of Stanley’s friends, knowing this, mispronounced the artist’s name one time when discussing him with Stanley, referring to the artist as “Minóy.” Well, Stanley loved it, and the rest is history. As an aside, anyone who ever received a cassette from Minóy can attest to his talent with abstract art – some of his J-card cassette cover creations are works of art in themselves. And it was not unusual for him to artistically “decorate” the plastic cover so that it too became “art,” sometimes incorporating 3-D relief features with all kinds of embellishments.

But Minóy is best known for his solo compositions, which number well over 100. Whether a C60 or C90 cassette boasted only one, or perhaps six, works of audio art, he is recognized as the master of controlled noise, who used every sound imaginable in the world around him as his audio palette. Many releases had only one or two compositions, and these gave him the time to develop his themes and hypnotically enshroud the listener in what were usually very powerful works – which made for a very memorable and powerful “trip.” This was the secret to his magic and magnetism – calling his music “noise” properly identifies it in the respectful lexicon of the time, but doesn’t do it justice. It was, rather, a composed and, again, controlled manipulated agglomeration of sounds, natural and/or composed, that sucked you in with its precision and power. Then again, some of his works were totally different in structure, delicate yet powerful little mantras with alien riffs and melodies, often using, notably, a toy mouth organ, manipulated, echoed and multi-tracked to sound like a warning call from heaven – or hell. He also reveled in manipulating the human voice, another ingredient in the brew of several of his works. In summary, Minóy knew how to expertly manipulate any sound with another sound to come up with an engrossing, totally unique, brain-bending opus.

Minóy spent a couple of days with me in November 1987 in conjunction with a guest radio gig he was doing at a local radio station, and we toured San Francisco and the East Bay, visiting good record stores and doing a bit of the “tourist itinerary.” His recorder was clipped to his belt, always ready to capture interesting ambient sounds around us – which, with later manipulation and embellishments, were released as the Burning Tree (for Jack) cassette. It was great to meet him and I remember well his good humor, warm personality, acidic wit, and overall intelligence. He painted a wonderful work of abstract art for me, which hangs on our living-room wall to this day. We continued to keep in contact via phone and letters until we lost touch after he began a journey down different roads in the early ‘90s. But his music will live on forever.

You can hear a Radio Special that Jack Jordan and I did in 1988 here

It is a one hour mix of around 60 Minoy tapes.

Partial Minoy discography below.

Minoy Solo works
a Far Later Period

A Few Formalities Still Accorded

Humans

(2 titled pieces)

All Answers Answer All Questions

(5 C60 tapes; 10 titled pieces)

All My Hummingbirds Have Alibis

Amazonia

(2 titled pieces)

A Place of Shades

(2 titled pieces)

A Smell of Burnt Plastic and Rotten Oranges

AWAKE (A Dance for Ireland)

(5 titled pieces)

Bad Space

(2 titled pieces)

Bears Weigh the Same as Snakes

(2 titled pieces)

Be Cool (Spazm)

(5 titled pieces)

Black Market

(5 titled pieces)

Breaking Ear

(2 titled pieces)

Breaking the Same Bottle Twice

(2 titled pieces)

Burning Tree (For Jack)

Busy Signals

(6 titled pieces)

Celebration of the Sunrise

(2 titled pieces)

Cheap Friends

(7 titled pieces)

Chunk

Circles of Night

(4 titled pieces)

Consciousness and Alchemy

Cultural Crimes

Death Star Splash

(2 titled pieces)

Delicate Remnants of the Intangible

Removed and Preserved

(2 titled pieces)

Devil Music – Minóy Live at The Pub

(3 titled pieces; PBK [Phil-

lip B. Klingler] credited

as “Guest Artist”)

Doctor in a Dark Room

(2 titled pieces)

Dreamtime

(2 titled pieces)

Ejaculations (Paris, 1919)

(2 titled pieces)

Eternity Now

Firebird

(4 titled pieces)

Flirtations With Madness

(2 titled pieces)

Future Perfect

(7 titled pieces)

Goombah Dogbreath

(2 titled pieces)

Hypomania

I Can’t Even Talk About It Because I Am Living It

Ice Cream Money

(2 titled pieces)

Infinite Journey

In Search of Tarkovsky

(2 titled pieces)

In the Domain of the Double Moon

(2 titled pieces)

It’s No Game

(2 titled pieces)

Ivory Flash of Ambiguous Limbs

(2 titled pieces)

Jive Hot

(2 titled pieces)

Killer’s Kiss

(2 titled pieces)

Landscape with Serpent

(2 titled pieces)

Late Autumn

(8 titled pieces)

Life of the Life

(5 titled pieces)

Lunar Eclipse

(2 titled pieces)

Medea

Media Synthesis

(2 titled pieces)

Musique Terminale

(2 titled pieces)

Natural Rhythm

Neither Slumber Nor Sleep

(2 titled pieces)

Nervous Complaint

(2 titled pieces)

Nightslaves

(3 titled pieces)

Nocturnal Equations

(4 titled pieces)

Nostalghia

Not Knowing What Thunder Collects

Nuclear Swamp (For Arlen)

(2 C60 tapes; Parts 1-4)

Obscure Medicines

(7 titled pieces)

Our Desires Are Deprived of Cunning

Music

(5 titled pieces)

Outback

Panik Attak

(3 titled pieces)

Parts of Speech in the Nebula

(2 titled pieces)

Passage of the Migratory Bird

Pelleas et Melisande

Petty Jealousy

(9 titled pieces)

Plain Wrap Purgatory

(2 titled pieces)

Physical Radio

Prelude To a Plague

(2 titled pieces)

Pretty Young Negro Man

Priceless Mourning of Dead

Loves and Collapsed Perfumes

In Darker Waters

(6 titled pieces)

Psyberkynetyks

(Radio broadcast – KKUP, Cuper-

tino, CA, 5/8/88; excerpts from various

Minóy tapes compiled by Jack Jordan

and programmed by Don Campau;

show hosted by Campau/Jordan)

Radio Saddam

Rules of the Game

Secrets of The Talking Trees

Shortwave Mantra

Snap Diva

(2 titled pieces)

Solitude in a Motionless Migraine

(2 titled pieces)

Sound Proof

(3 C60 tapes, 6 titled pieces)

Spitting in Tongues

(2 titled pieces)

Spring Can Really Hang You Up

The Most

(2 titled pieces)

Squeezing the Tongue of the

Iguana Just to Hang On

Ssunspotss

(2 titled pieces)

Surpass and Overtake

(2 titled pieces)

Stasis and Acceleration

(2 titled pieces)

Stress Management

(2 titled pieces)

Taksim

(2 titled pieces)

Tempest in a Teacup

(3 titled pieces)

Tension, Fear, and Depravity

Tessh­u

(2 titled pieces)

That Which Momentously Declares

Itself Not To Be I And Yet Must Be.

It Could Be Nothing Else.

The Art of Egyptian Bathing

(2 titled pieces)

The Caretaker of Denial

(2 titled pieces)

The Conditions of Postmodern Male

Bonding

(2 titled pieces)

The Flavor of Acid on Ice

(2 titled pieces)

The Future of City Living

The Great Wall

(2 titled pieces)

The Insomniac’s Halo of Worms

(2 titled pieces)

The Phantom Concerto

(7 titled pieces)

The Soul of a Tree

(2 titled pieces)

The Tyranny of Distance

(2 titled pieces)

The Well-Tuned Radio

(3 C60 tapes, 6 titled pieces)

The Zone

(2 titled pieces)

Then Perhaps a Last Time

(4 titled pieces)

Tomorrow and Tomorrow

(2 titled pieces)

Ugetsu

(3 titled pieces)

Urban Tribe

(7 titled pieces)

White With a Crust of Chill

(2 titled pieces)

XYZ

(2 titled pieces)

Minóy collaborations

(“rc” = “research collaborator(s).” It is possible that a very few of these names are Stanley Bowsza [Minóy] recording solo under a pseudonym.)

Andy Warhol’s Mother

(Minóy & ?)

The Silver Screen

Darling Candy

Anhedonia For Profit

(Minóy & Mystery Hearsay)

The Evolution of Cement

Balance of Terror

(rc; no info on J-card)

Guilt for Dreaming

Safe Sin

No Fats, No Fems, Uncut

Who Killed Fassbinder?

Money, Power, Guilt, Lies,

and More Lies (for David)

Bwannóy

(Minóy & Al Margolis)

Deconstruction Workers

The Ancients

Darker Corners

Disco Splendor

(Minóy & Philip B. Klingler)

“Command Performance

(Live in Hell)”

Skinned Alive

The Divine Comedy

Disco Splendor (cont’d.)

Correct Music

One Way

Another Way

New Wage

Poverty is for Fools

Elegy For a Wasteland

Vicious Icon (Indeterminate Distance)

Heteroglossia

Suturing the Wound of Castration with

Narrative

The Copulation of Cliches

The Limits of Liberation

Dangling Scrotum Girls

Mythology (recorded live)

Less is Less

Neutralize

Dead Fun (Reprise)

Dangling Scrotum Girls

El Angel Exterminador

(Minóy & Not-1/2)

Sic Transit Gloria Suez Tuesday

Provenance in Pencil

Go Potty

(Minóy & John Hudak)

This Right After This

Get Out, Do Places, Go Things

Grandbrother

(Minóy & Zan Hoffman)

The Minóy Speakeasy Club

Haints

(Minóy, Richard Meade, Tobacco

Spot, and Creative Thing)

Mademoiselle

Going Home

My Life as a Haint

Mysteries Unsolved

Half Haints

(Minóy & Tobacco Spot)

How the West Was One

Tumbleweed Factory

April 1985 (“very rare, unmixed,

unedited”) session

Jazz and Get Fat

(Minóy & Roger L. Moneymaker)

Colombe Don’t Belong

Improbable Resolutions for the

Phantom of Cordelia

Cathedral of Erotic Misery

My Tragic Little Cat in the Great

Dog’s Mouth

Dog Mouth

Peach Meat

Basements Paved in Gold

The Pacification of Conflicts

Johnny Switchblade

(Minóy, Christopher Smith, &

Roger L. Moneymaker)

L’amour Fou

The Detachable Prostitute

Juanita Fax

(rc; no info on J-card)

A Raincheck on Pain

Dry Hump

Lesbians of Color

(Minóy & ?)

Boy with Arms Akimbo

Channels of Desire

Trickfilm

Drop Dead Gorgeous

Lucy Godard

(rc; no info on J-card)

Á Bout de Souffle

Mental Anguish/Minóy

(Chris Phinney & Minóy)

Affection of Hometown Scars

Full Bloom (with Molly Ann

Phinney)

Minóy & Das Fröhliche Wohnzimmer

(Minóy & _________)

The Eternal Fires of Darkness

Minóy & Tom Furgas

(listed as “Tom Furgas & Minóy”)

White Trash Can’t Handle Success

Minóy/Hudak

(Minóy & John Hudak)

Requiem for Christina Paffgen

Economic Determinism

Minóy/PBK

(Minóy & Phillip B. Klingler)

“Chansons Mystiques”

The Hermaphrodite with Eyeglasses

and a Divining Rod

And Your Eyes Are Soft Like the

Hair of an Ape

Minóy & Zan Hoffman

M (Minóyzanthropy)

MinóyZannoy

(Minóy, Zan Hoffman, and

Roger L. Montgomery)

Minóyellstillife

(Minóy & Zan Hoffman)

Subdubminblast

Binge Personality (for Lido)

Moondogs

Inverse Zanamintones

Condoms or Corpses?

Caught in the Throat of the Beast

Forge a Pan

MinoyZannoy (cont’d.)

You Can Be Anything You Want

to Be This Time Around

Monochrome Melodrama

A Simple Case of Hysteria

Most of What You Deny is True

Multiple Minóy

The Sequel Without a Beginning

The Persistence of an Insistent

Memory

The Persistence of Memory

The Twists and Turns of The Loved And Hated M

The Plan

A Violent End

Round One: Minóy vs. Zannoy

XYZ

Why Do the Cat’s Feet Blur

Meat Rags

Sodomy in the Supreme Court Lobby

Subdubminblast

No Mail on Sundays

(Minóy & Damian Bisciglia [“Agog”])

Blood and Semen

In the Pit

Worried Through a New Machine

A Sensitive Boy

Door Closed Door Open

Radar Messages

Patience Worth Minóy

(Minóy & Dave Bush)

Forgive Us Our Debut As We Forgive

Those Who Debut Against Us

Penelope Waste

(rc; Minóy & ?)

Stiff

PM [Prescott/Minóy)

(Dave Prescott & Minóy)

Patches of Difficult Hours

Sinfonia au Contraire

Fertility

Ever Becoming is Endless Dying

Dancing About Architecture

Systems Engineering

Spaceshot

Hotline

Cybernetic Intercourse

Soft Focus (Music Which Plays Itself)

Second Thoughts

Mr. Spazmodi

On the Third Day

“and the evening and the morning”

The Dying Man (An Opera in Six

Scenes)(text by Gertrude Stein

and Minóy)

PM By PM

(Dave Prescott & Minóy)

One PM

Two PM

PMP

(Prescott/Minóy/Prescott)

(Dave Prescott intentionally credited

twice)

And Grinding Dairies

Parking Fords, and Porking

Feminists

PMZ

(Dave Prescott, Minóy, and Zan

Hoffman)

Zamindar

Speedo Van Gogh

(rc; no info on J-card)

Sorry, Sorry Night

No Sale!

Victims of Cinerama

(Minóy & Dan Fioretti)

Every Twelve Hundred Hours or a

New Stewardess….

The Hip, Far-Out and Groovy Sounds

of Tomorrow

Fun with Bernice and Her Yuppie

Girlfriends (Including the Return

of Waltzing Matilda)

Minóy Erases the Tapes of The

Partridge Family Reunion Album